30 Days of Thanks...

This November I tried every single day to make sure I made a mental note of what I was thankful for. Not being too cliche, but really sitting down and thinking what exactly each and every day I was thankful for, to have in my life or to have my life blessed by. I posted them on Facebook so I was sure to not forget:
{Day 1} I am thankful to know the love of a family.
{Day 2} Today I am thankful for a warm place to call our home and the feeling of little fingers around my neck for a big embrace after a long day at work :)

{Day 3}
Today I am thankful for a warm cup of green tea to soothe my sore throat at a place I call my employer doing a job I love. Thankful to be a working mom...I feel I am a better person because of this and hope my children understand some day.

{Day 4}
Today I am thankful for a fantastic school that educates Dylan during the week and a loving and nurturing sitter for Danielle to give her what she needs. We have some pretty fantastic educators in our life that we are very thankful for!

{Day 5}
Thankful for a relaxing morning at home with a hot cup of coffee and snuggles from my girl...and a husband who is having fun one on one play time with our son. Parenthood is our gift.

{Day 6}
Today I am thankful for an extra hour of sleep for the whole family. And a family fun day starting with snap shots of memories of our life right now!

{Day 7}Today I am extra thankful for my husband. He is a fantastic father for our children and a hard worker for our family! Thank you Brad we ♥ you lots!

{Day 8}
Today I am thankful for the medical team that has helped our children. Doctors nurses Rt 's and the therapists who continue to help our daughter every single week. These professionals have helped our children more than we can thank them for.

{Day 9} Today I am thankful for the changing of seasons. We live to appreciate them and there is nothing better than waking up to the first snowfall of the year and hearing the excitement in my little boys voice when he looks out the window, 'look mom, there's SNOW!' ♥ it!

{Day 10}
Today I'm thankful for my parents...instilling family values in me when I was young and helping me grow into who I am today.
{Day 11}
Today I am very thankful its Friday! Just a few working hours away from a fun filled weekend!
{Day 12}Thankful for 2 day weekends spent doing things at our own discretion. Jammie days, busy days around the house, fun days with friends and family...whatever we do, we love having these times to rejuvenate!

{Day 13}
What a beautiful day!!!! Fall cleaning and organizing... perfect day for it! Today I am thankful for opportunity that may come from places you would least expect!

{Day 14} Today I am thankful for my little ones internal alarm clocks who wake them up and me, especially after I turn my alarm clock off and fall back asleep.
{Day 15}
Today I am thankful for sunshine...regardless of the outside temperature sunshine is always good for my sole.
{Day 16} Today I am thankful for a cozy warm house on a very chilly November morning. Very thankful we have a place to call home. It was kinda hard to get out of bed today knowing it was only 13 degrees out with the wind chill! Burr!!
{Day 17}Today I am thankful for the very best friends a girl could ask for. Near or far we always keep in touch and are very much a part of each others lives :)
{Day 18}
Today I am thankful for our children, all 3 of them. Today I wear purple for my children to raise awareness for national prematurity awareness day. The gift of life is one not to be taken for granted. ♥ my three D's.
{Day 19}
Today I am thankful for grandparents. Love our elders and really enjoyed the company of two Grandmas today. They put such an amazing perspective on life!
{Day 20}
Today I am thankful for moments of reflection with my hubby. I am so thankful that we are on the same page about life in general, as husband and wife and as parents. I am so grateful for the day we spent reflecting on life, together.
{Day 21}
Today I am thankful for Mondays...they bring me back to reality, which I do need at times after a few days off work. And the extra bonus ...its a short week so I really don't mind ;)
{Day 22}
Today I am thankful for technology.
{Day 23}  Today I am thankful for freedom. To live in a country where we can make our own choices and live how we feel is best for us.
{Day 24}Very thankful for all the blessings in my life. My husband, children, parents, siblings, family and friends. So much to be thankful for what we have in our life right now, roof over our heads, transportation to get us to where we need to be, jobs that we love, food on our table for our family and much more. God is great, much blessings to all of our family and friends today. Looking forward to spending the day with family and long time friends that are family to us. To those across the miles... I miss you all so much.
{-Happy Thanksgiving!-}
{Day 25}Today I am thankful for the internet and online deals! First year in awhile that I'm not out shopping but rather shopping early in my jammies, online, while my little monkeys are still sleeping off their turkey!
{Day 26} Today I am thankful for our furry child. Skylar without a doubt puts a smile on our face every single day.
{Day 27} Today I am thankful for being able to snuggle up with our little ones and falling back asleep. Waking up with them in my arms and trying not to move so they sleep for just a little bit longer.
The next 3 days coming up!
This Thanksgiving we had a few great days with family. Last Saturday we spent with Brad's family. It was a nice day spent catching up and the kids had a great time playing and got lots of attention! They were exhausted when we came home, Dylan sure got his work out in playing with his cousin Carson and Uncles Nick and Tony, he was one tuckered out little boy!

 Dylan & Carson

Thanksgiving Day was spent with my Dad's side of the family. We invited several of our close family friends to our feast this year. It was a lot of fun having such a large group of people to celebrate with. We rented the upper level of the Guarantee Bank in Fairfax, we have had several family functions there the past few years and it works out perfect. A huge amount of room and a full kitchen. We packed in with our goodies and had just that a true Thanksgiving feast.

~Playtime with Grandpa~

~Little girl play time too~

Football was in full swing

 Just the start of crock pot row!

We had a very nice day celebrating with family and friends. My favorite part of the day was just before our feast, we went all around the room and each person and child said what they were thankful for this year. It was a very nice touch to this Thanksgiving day. No doubt we were all thankful to have family to celebrate with. After dinner it was wine and more wine and games and lots of laughs..... Perfect round up for our Thanksgiving 2011.



The Circle of Life!

Each time a babe is born the Circle of Life begins. Life is precious, it is a gift and it is certainly not to be taken for granted.
For some babies life outside of the womb begins too soon. This November we celebrate National Prematurity Awareness Month. November 17th we wore Purple for our kiddo's, for World Prematurity Awareness Day.

Our family participates when we can in raising awareness and funding research for organizations that hope to one day prevent premature birth and one day we hope all babies will be born full term and healthy.

 Kenzi Photography in Marion was generous enough to showcase the stories of local kids who were born premature. We shared our story and one family would win a photography session that she would use in conjunction with the March of Dimes to spread awareness for the fight to save all babies. Here is our story:

When a baby is born we celebrate. We cherish a healthy new born baby and there is nothing more precious than being a Mom and a Dad and holding that new bundle in your arms for the very first time. On 11/8 our friends the LeConte's welcomed into the world baby Alexander Charles. He was set to arrive on 11/11 but instead surprised us all and arrived a few days before his Mom and Dad had planned. They did not know the sex of the baby, so coming before his planned c-section date and not knowing the sex, every part about it was a huge surprise! He weighed 8 pounds 11 ounces and was born on 11/8, how cool is that! We went up and saw him and I was beaming the whole time. As the LeConte's have been thru premature birth with Drew being a preemie like Dylan, and then with Allison, Emily was on bed rest at mid 20 week range and not knowing if she would come early or not. Well with baby Alex, all was perfect, a little bit of nervousness in the beginning but overall a perfect pregnancy, no bed rest and a perfect baby boy born full term! Congrats LeConte family! I loved snuggling you're precious baby boy! I think he is a keeper that is for sure and his big brother and sister could not be more proud! And the Circle of Life continues...

And in our lives we take time each year to celebrate birthdays! And those milestone birthdays are cause for BIG celebration for each and every one of us! We celebrated in a big way for Kirsten's big 3-0! We started out surprising her with a Spa afternoon and lunch with our girl friends. She was pleasantly surprised and we all very much enjoyed the indulgence of a fabulous lunch and relaxing and catching up in the relax room and then our individual massages. Ahhh, it was pure re-laxation for a birthday celebration!
That evening we had a sitter for the kiddo's and the adults reconvened for a night out on the town! Our wonderful friend Raquel is prego and was very generous to pick us all up and drive us around in a big van that Mike rented for the evening festivities! It was a ton of fun!
First stop up was dinner in Mount Vernon. We had reservations at Lincoln Cafe but stopped next door to the Lincoln Wine bar for a few samples and also purchased a few bottles of wine to accompany us at dinner!

 We enjoyed a fabulous dinner and a ton of laughs! just what we were looking for for a fantastic birthday celebratory evening! Happy Birthday Kirsten!

From there we headed into Cedar Rapids and browsed the light life downtown. We were surly out numbered as many were all decked up for Halloween. It was fun seeing all of the craze's in costume!
As the evening went on the van ride got more interesting! It was a ton of fun and Taylor was a fantastic DJ up front for us! The guys were having plenty of fun tailing up the rear for us.

Happy 30th Birthday Kir! We had a fun day and evening celebrating with you! We hope that all of your Birthday wishes come true and the next 10 years have only fantastic things in store for you :) And the Circle of Life continues...
And sadly in life curve balls can be thrown at you at any time. Things do not seem fair, nothing negative should interfere with anyone in their life journey. But even as those curve balls get thrown at some, taking those things that interfere and making the most and believing that things will be ok is all that can be done to cherish the days of our lives.

Meet my cousin Kellie

 She has a beautiful family, these are their kiddo's, Lynzie and Kellen

The past several years have not been easy for Kellie. In her words, here is the beginning of her story:

I've been dealing with Melanoma since I was pregnant with Lynzi, in 2004. Over the years I've dealt with numerous recurrences and was able to be disease free for periods of time in between surgeries.

          I​n 2008 I progressed to Stage IV.
          May 2010 brought a new recurrence in my thyroid gland and surrounding lymph nodes which are inoperable at the current time.
Early last year Kellie entered into a couple Clinical Trials at the University of Iowa. Things have not been easy for her. The first clinical trial went okay but after several doses showed more growth in a percentage they were not comfortable with. She trialed another treatment last year that ended up being very critical for Kellie. Every 4 weeks she has been in and out of the hospital seeing her physician and having scans done. The goal is obviously shrinkage but stable disease is also encouraging. Her last scans in September showed 10% growth versus just 6 % on her previous scans before that. But mostly she has had a rough ride all while trying to maintain quality of life. She is a SAHM with her two little ones that are our kids ages, she works evenings so she can be home with them during the day. Her husband is a hard worker and she has been able to have some very memorable vacations with girlfriends and her sisters over the past year. Last December before she started the trial in which she became very critical, her 2 best girlfriends surprised her and took her on a 3 day whirlwind trip to Las Vegas before she started her treatment. Just this summer she flew out to NYC with her sister Melissa and they met their other sister Laura for a week long girls trip, bonding and enjoying sisterly time. All while keeping a smile on her face and us as her family and surly her close friends are well aware of the battle she faces daily.
This past week things took a turn for the worst. Kellie collapsed at work, which is thankfully at the U, and was rushed to the ER.
She was transferred to SICU and received a CT scan than determined that Kellie has a very large tumor (approximately the size of a baseball) in the left lobe of her brain. Her right side has been severely affected and Kellie has the appearance of someone who has had a stroke, although she hasn't. Kellie's speech has been severely impaired and her ability to communicate reduced dramatically. The tumor is inoperable and she started radiation on Friday. As of Friday night, Kellie was showing signs of improvement and received the second radiation treatment yesterday. However, earlier yesterday, the medical staff were unable to maintain pain control for her and she underwent another CT scan. It showed that the swelling is increasing and steroids were ordered to help decrease the swelling and help with pain control.
My...heart...hurts. This is not right and mostly this is not fair. This precious beautiful woman is now extremely critical and she has a beautiful family at home that needs her. Prayer Warriors and friends, will you please keep Kellie in your thoughts and prayers and send any extra positive energy you have, her way. This is so very hard to understand. But this is not good. Her two sisters flew in today to be by her side. She has fought one hell of a battle and is not giving up now. Time is of the essence and we pray the doctors and nurses can make her as comfortable as possible and that the radiation treatments show significant shrinkage.
The Circle of Life continues and is very perplexing at times. We fight from the moment we are born and all thru our life in one way or another. We are all very lucky to have our time here and we pray, oh dear, we pray that ones life is not shorter than it should be.
As the Holiday season is upon us, we have a whole lot to be thankful this year. 30 days of Thanks is the least I can do, to share how thankful I am for the life I have today. Please, oh lord, protect our family and friends. And as I pray every single night, Keep them safe, happy and free from harm, from now until death do us part. Amen.

Happy Halloween!

Each year it seems the kids, especially Dylan get more and more into the 'spirit' of Halloween! The anticipation begins at the end of September when we first see the orange and black in stores, then it's thinking of Halloween costumes and either making them or making the purchase! Brad is very much into Halloween and just loves it. If he could go all out every single year, trust me, he would! So it is fun to get the decor out and the spooky pumpkin and ghost strobe lights. We always wait until Halloween to turn them on but that is a long wait when you are 3 and 5!
The annual carving of our pumpkins is always a ton of fun. This year we decided to forgo our pumpkin carving kids and go for more creativity. Dylan told us what he had in mind and here is the finale! It was a fun family affair!

The ghosts and goblins were out tonight! And so was our little Lady Bug & Spiderman!

Dylan was SO excited for trick or treating this year. He was also VERY excited to dress up all day at school! We decided that he would wear his Cowboy costume from last year to school, this way Spiderman wouldn't get dirty or torn or something during the day. It seemed to work out great and Dylan didn't mind he was just excited to be in costume!
The pre-school parents were invited to his classroom that afternoon for their little 'haunting' and renactment of a special book put on by the pre-school teachers. It was very cute and Dylan was so excited to have his mommy there watching!

Here is a short video clip, it was just too cute not to share but it is having trouble uploading, darnit! These teachers are so amazing and the kids of course all were SO into it! Adorable! After the book renactment in his preschool room we headed to the gym for the all school Halloween parade. The costumes were very cool. There was some really awesome creativity in costumes. To say the kids were excited is a bit of an understatement!

 Danielle was also very excited for Halloween this year. Our sweet girl was totally wicked cute!!

Trick or treating was a ton of fun. Dylan the little festive guy he is, only wanted to trick or treat at houses that were totally decked out! So the houses that only had their front porch light on, but no decorations, yep, he wanted to skip those houses. We were happy the weather wasn't too cold, The kids were bundled up in their costumes, but not too many extra layers were needed, which was nice and made the evening more pleasant!

Our neighborhood is FULL of kids trick or treating on Halloween. Neighbors sitting outside with firepits in the driveway handing out candy. Some houses are very generous handing out cold adult beverages or hot chocolate for the parents! We made it around the Circle, hitting about every 4th house and got home just in time to hand out candy before it was too late. Halloween was a lot of fun this year for our Holub family!